Questioning Sexual Identity Later in Life

[SayWhat]

I have a curiosity question. I'm definitely not trying to offensive, so please forgive me if I come off ignorant.

My personal friends that identify as gay/lesbian/bi/etc. have all said they knew from childhood that they were attracted to the same/both sex(es). I'm the same way. Don't get me wrong, I struggled with accepting it. But that didn't alter the fact that I knew something was up.

I've read a few threads on here from people that don't seem to have this realization until much later in life. My questions to people who have experienced this:
- Was your life actually void of sexual attraction to the same or both sexes prior to this realization? Or now that you're starting to acknowledge it, do you realize that it has been present throughout your life?
- Also, what prompted your curiosity? Was it a person, life event, etc.?


I've done some brief research about human sexuality and it fascinates me, so I hope people don't mind sharing their stories.

Thanks!!

 

[lambdaboy]

I can not speak for other people the majority of people who come out late always knew they were gay and were ashamed of it. Especially inm the U.S. with there Jesus fixation.

I am American and now also hold British Citizenship. I will never go back to the U.S. and its homophobia.

 

[NineOfClubs]

^The above is mostly claptrap.

I was always opposed to religion, so it had nothing to to with me postponing coming out.

When I was young a couple of cousins of mine came on to me, with one something happened, not much..

Another cousin had an ongoing full out sexual relationship with one of his cousins.

Long story short, they were all straight, all got married, etc..

So, in my day and age, I thought this sort of experimentation was the norm.

I got married.

Sixteen years later I finally discovered men and found myself too.

 

[arpeggi]

I first came out to a friend, and myself, at 28. The guys I meet tend to think that's late in life. But, eh, I can assure you it had nothing to do with Jesus. LOL.

I don't recall thinking about it too much as a child until junior high. Perhaps seeing other boys undress in the locker room for the first time is what brought it on. I would have girlfriends and crushes on girls, but never sex. I remember sleeping over at a friend's house, talking about the girls we liked, and me asking "If you were gay, which guy in our gym class would you want?" In high school though, I never thought of myself as gay but always knew I was curious, just afraid to bring it up. I never had any opportunity, or initiative, to fool around with other guys. Even in college I was always around straight people. I was attracted to women to a certain extent, but being intimate with them never felt comfortable. I always thought to myself that when I got away, to a bigger city or something, that would be my opportunity to try things with men. Well eventually it was, again nothing I made happen, it was always a matter of circumstance. I just let it happen when it did, comfortably.
To an extent I regret being such an opportunist, but I was never aware how much I would enjoy being with men until I was. I wouldn't say I was ashamed of it. I've just always been a very unsure person in many respects, labeling myself as gay felt hasty without ever actually being with a man first. Falling in love with the "right woman" always felt just as likely and desirable as hooking up with a guy, until I realized it wasn't.

 

[mbamike]

- Was your life actually void of sexual attraction to the same or both sexes prior to this realization?

No my life was not void of attraction to other men. I hid any attractions I had and suppressed any desires. I wanted to be accepted so I "acted" as they expected me, as a straight male. I dated girls, got married, had a kid, and got divorced.

Now that you're starting to acknowledge it, do you realize that it has been present throughout your life?

I have known since I was at least in my early twenties that I was sexually attracted to guys.

- Also, what prompted your curiosity? Was it a person, life event, etc.?

I was sexually unfulfilled. Sex with women had always been a chore for me. I enjoyed how they feel lying next to me naked, kissing them, etc, but it just seemed like there was more than what I had experienced. I wanted more.

I had been playing with my ass for years, sticking things up there, and finger fucking myself. I slowly began to purchase real sex toys like dildoes and prostate massager.

I had been looking at gay porn too. I think a naked woman is beautiful, but a naked man is even more beautiful. And two naked guys having man to man sex is awesome.

So, I decided I would confront my sexual attraction to men and get it behind me. I decided I would have gay sex. I found a great guy on a hook up site. We met at a motel on one of my out-of-town business trips. It was supposed to have been a one-time hook up. We really clicked. We ended up spending the entire weekend together. The sex was WONDERFUL. It was the best sex of my life! I have hooked up with other guys since. The sex is still great!

 

[ffolkesmaster]

Hmm..good topic. For me personally, I was never attracted to men...not at all. I loved tits and pussy...still do. I've never been particularly religious and neither was my family...I don't recall homosexuality being discussed negatively or positively as a youth. I'd say it wasn't until my late thirties that I started being attracted to cocks. It started a bit slowly...loving porn showing focusing on cocks and gals....eventually cocks cumming...facials, whatever...to just masturbation and now here...I'd love to give a guy some major oral action and feel a hot cock fire cum down my throat. I still love tits and pussy...but I love cock too. It really isn't something I feel I've denied since youth...maybe its more of the older I've gotten, to more open I am.

 

[conrad]

Time and chance enter into the way in which we become aware of ourselves as sexual beings.

Without consciously doing so our society tends to point us in the direction of identifying ourselves as heterosexual.

Unless, of course, we were fortunate to have other contrary forces working in the process which is the dawning of our counsciousness as sexual beings.

Looking back I have concluded that my discovery of the joyful pleasure to be had when my hand was creatively joined with my cock was very important to my particular awareness as a sexual being. I enjoyed masturbation but even more important was the learning which my solo time provided. My mind was busy putting everything I knew to work to fit my budding sexuality into the whole of life,

I think the reason I was not hot after the girls was that I had a sneaking suspicion that the lovely ejaculate I produced was indeed filled with very vigorous sperm which would surely cause me trouble were I to be "fooling around with the girls". I fully expected that one day I would find myself joined in sexual communion with a female.

Having excluded the idea of trying "up close and personal" with a girl, I was wonderfully open to close bonding with the new guy in town and happy for the two years of sexual activity we had learning by doing.

When my oldest friend, the girl next door, home from college for the summer, seemed suddenly to begin to see me as a fully sexual being, I took noteand was very open to recieve from her the kind of introdkuction to the arena of heterosexual bonding that i would wish for every young man. By summer's end I was thoroughly convinced that my future lay in a "proper" conventional sexual relationship in marriage with a girl.

Though I was convinced that the hetero side of my sexuality was dominant, I reusmed my relationship with my teen lover when he returned from his stay on his grandparents' ranch. I was seldom without a sexual partner two of whom were female and three male. I have always kept the awareness that that gay lesser side of my sexuality is also part of what defines me sexually. Yes, I do miss m2m sex, but one could also say I miss the sex I enjoyed with two female partners before I met my wife.

I have always been a very faithful partner whether I was enjoying sexual communion with a male or a female. Thus, I prefer to call myself ambi-sexual rather than bi-sexual: I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE THAT THERE IS BEAUTY AND MYSTERY ON BOTH ENDS OF HUMAN SEXUALITY. BUT i HAVE NEVER BEEN GREEDY AND ATTEMPTED TO HAVE MORE THAN ONE ON-GOING SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP.

This is, indeed, a subject close to my heart. I use the larger print to ease my poor eyesight. i continue to enjoy general vitality in all important matters in my late eighties. The journey into the fullness of my sexuality has been a very happy one. I am fortunate that all five of my former partners in sex are still alive and well. I loved each of them before we ever had sex and I love them still though our sexual partnerships no longer exist.

 

[SayWhat]

Thank you for the responses!

I guess in some ways, those of us that experience it in childhood are kind of lucky. At that point people haven't grown familiar with who we are as adults, so we have the flexibility to experiment and choose how we identify ourselves to other people.

I think there would be a lot more pressure after high school and college, especially for those that married and had kids, to just continue living as they have been and suppress any curiosities.

 

[conrad]

Say what, in my view we all make our accommodations to the situations we find ourselves in on have chosen to put ourselves in.

Life involves choices. ONe does not get the desire for m2m contact out of one's system IMHO. But then often men and women too never quite get over the person they might have, should have, could have married either. We cope and are happy to do so.

Most of us are reasonably happy and we want those who are part of our lives to be happy also.

None goes his way alone; all that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.

 

[AcquiredTaste]

Except for a handful of occasions, I never really had any gay thoughts or desires when I was young. On those few occasions when I had gay thoughts, I just wrote them off in my mind as nothing serious. I considered myself straight, found women attractive, and enjoyed being with them. In the last year or so, things seemed to shift. I started having a lot of gay thoughts and desires. At some point, I steered away from straight porn and started looking at gay porn. I find it to be an incredible turn on. I've not actively sought out another man yet for sex, etc., but the urge is definitely there.

 

[YoungChub4You]

I didn't know since childhood. But I realized it during high school that I was definite attracted to guys.

 

[SayWhat]

Say what, in my view we all make our accommodations to the situations we find ourselves in on have chosen to put ourselves in.

Life involves choices. ONe does not get the desire for m2m contact out of one's system IMHO. But then often men and women too never quite get over the person they might have, should have, could have married either. We cope and are happy to do so.

Most of us are reasonably happy and we want those who are part of our lives to be happy also.

None goes his way alone; all that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.

Very good point!

 

[JustJuice]

Hmm..good topic. For me personally, I was never attracted to men...not at all. I loved tits and pussy...still do. I've never been particularly religious and neither was my family...I don't recall homosexuality being discussed negatively or positively as a youth. I'd say it wasn't until my late thirties that I started being attracted to cocks. It started a bit slowly...loving porn showing focusing on cocks and gals....eventually cocks cumming...facials, whatever...to just masturbation and now here...I'd love to give a guy some major oral action and feel a hot cock fire cum down my throat. I still love tits and pussy...but I love cock too. It really isn't something I feel I've denied since youth...maybe its more of the older I've gotten, to more open I am.

I could have written this. In fact, I checked to see if I had written it, and forgotten about it.

- Was your life actually void of sexual attraction to the same or both sexes prior to this realization? Or now that you're starting to acknowledge it, do you realize that it has been present throughout your life?

I was never attracted to men. Just women. However, I've been a sexual sort of guy, ie sex is important to me, more so than other men on average as far as I can work out. I've come to realise that a lot of women experiment with sex with other women, and I figured, that one day, I'd try two things: sky diving, and sex with a man.

Also, what prompted your curiosity? Was it a person, life event, etc.?

I still haven't tried sky diving. I turned 34. I decided that it was time to try it out, I had been an adult for a long time, and I was ready. So i headed to the local gay bathhouse. Got a hand job. Realised I wasn't attracted to men. However, the idea that a guy could get some action pretty much on demand was an inviting and exciting idea for a guy who knew how hard it was to get something similar from a woman, and didn't want to pay for it (prostitution is legal where I live).

So over about 10 more years, it gradually dawned on me that mutual oral sex with a man would make a lot of sense when I live in a world where women aren't exactly giving blow jobs away as often as I'd like/need.

 

[AsianDream]

Sexual orientation does change and is not fixed by genes or at birth.

I know this for a fact because it happened to me.

Labels are just for Jam - don't try to live your life as a "label" just follow what you really are.